My Star Wars Cast

I can't remember what website I got the idea from but the following is a list of actors I would cast if I was in charge of the newest Star Wars trilogy. In no order:

Ian McShane:  Two words, “Jedi cocksucker.”


Andy Serkis: I have just casted your entire mocap team and a human character as well.


Tim Curry: He’s a great actor and he’s British!

Dwayne Johnson: He’s the fucking ROCK, he’s in all my movies!


Nathan Fillion: He’s a scruffy nerf-herder.


Billy Zane: Screw you, this is my movie, he's in!


Alan Rickman: Dude, Alan Rickman. When has he not delivered?

Question

How many women are offend by the first cover art done for Catwoman that had to be replaced?

original cover

new cover

ANNOYANCES OF PODCASTING

Normally when I do a blog (as rare as that is) I always back up my statements and beliefs/views with links but this time I won’t because it’s all personal beliefs. I truly like all of the podcasts/radio that I listen to (sixteen regularly) and I don’t want to single them out or the people in them individually so I will not link to situations where they do these things that are major annoyances to me.

So in no particular order here are the top six. I’m sure there are more but I’m hungry.

1. Crappy mic: I’m not saying that everyone has to use the same soundcard and microphone I am saying ONLY USE A HEADSET (unless you are buying a killer mic that Axl Rose uses in the studio). Do not use the mic off of your webcam or a 10 dollar mic you bought at Radio Shack (they still have those right?). This also goes for those shows who let people listen in or help with the show and give them time on the show to talk or a segment. Do not allow someone who sounds like they are recording in a box lower the quality of your show. Buy a 30 dollar headset at Wal-Mart and be done with it.

2. Use the same level of volume for all hosts: I understand this may be an issue when you have three or four people spread across the globe on the same show (which is pretty sweet we can do that) but this is for those of you who record in the same room together. There is nothing more annoying than listening to three people talk and then fourth chimes in and you have to stop what you’re doing or turn up the volume to hear them.

3. Lack of theme music fade out: Audacity is a free program use FADE OUT to SLOWLY fade out your theme song out so you will not have it drop 30 decibels in a second.

4. Mindless rambling about personal issues: If I want to listen to a show about topic A then I do not care about your kids are doing. If I want to listen to topic B then I do not care about what your wife is doing. I care about what the subject of the show is about. It’s almost a guarantee that before you go live or you record your show you are talking to the co-host(s) so use that time to talk about that garbage.

5. Use the same level of volume when you speak: Do not start off talking in a nice clear voice and then start talking softer and softer and then turn into mumbling. Pay attention to the way you are speaking. I don’t care about your accents or colloquialisms you may use, I just want to hear you.

6. People who do not belong on the show: Just because she/he is a spouse or dating someone on the show doesn’t mean they belong there or know anything about the topic and it weakens the product and you as a person for allowing them on there.

You still have a few days left to pick up the digital edition of the Slayer of Saints for FREE on Amazon. 

In the late 1800's, the ailing pope is replaced by the evil Marcus Aurelio. Upon his ascension to becoming Holy Father, Aurelio unleashes the Slayer of Saints, a warrior who will lead a demonic army to make the world kneel before him and usher in the return of Lucifer as the Messiah. Richard Bruce, last son of the lineage of demon slayers, must put aside his grievances with God and lead an Angelic host of warriors to defend mankind.

Arrrghhh!!!!

Recently it was said in an interview with Marcin Iwinski, the CEO of CD Projekt, that the game, “The Witcher 2” was pirated roughly by 4 million people and only bought buy 1 million. That is a very tough pill to swallow and what sucks is that CD Projekt are on the side of good when it comes to DRM. When asked about the one million in sales number and how they acquired it with their games Iwinski said, “We did not give up, but came up with new strategy: we started offering high value with the product – like enhancing the game with additional collectors’ items like soundtracks, making-of DVDs, books, walkthroughs, etc. This, together with a long process of educating local gamers about why it makes sense to actually buy games legally, worked. And today, we have a reasonably healthy games market. In any case, I am not saying that we have eliminated piracy or there is not piracy in the case of TW2. There is, and TW2 was [illegally] downloaded by tens of thousands of people during the first two weeks after release. Still, DRM does not work and however you would protect it, it will be cracked in no time. Plus, the DRM itself is a pain for your legal gamers – this group of honest people, who decided that your game was worth the 50 USD or Euro and went and bought it. Why would you want to make their lives more difficult?”

The question is how many of us steal? Chances are if you’re on the internet and anyone ever sent you to watch a clip on YouTube, you stole. What?! Yup, you have. That clip you saw of “Family Guy” or an old episode of “the Fall Guy” I’m willing to bet that wasn’t uploaded by Fox and the studio owns the rights to the Fall Guy so you illegally streamed a video. You are part of the problem… however all of us are. And trying to stop it is rather difficult. Still on the subject of YouTube, “more than 48 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute,” there are tools in place to try and prevent copyrighted material but thousands will still get by and be viewed by tens of thousands up to millions.

What about those of us who have products on the market that can be uploaded illegally? I recently put a novel I co-wrote into publication with an e-book and paperback, “The Slayer of Saints.” When the option came up for DRM for the e-book version I didn’t include it. Our number one goal was not to make money but to actually get notoriety for the book and perhaps someone in an industry could take note of us and lead us (at least me I’m not sure what his overall goal is now) to where I don’t have to work twelve hours a day at a job I hate. I can actually get paid to do what I love and create worlds and universes and see them come to life with films and comics. We don’t care if it’s the most pirated ebook or file on the internet SOMEONE will have to have read it that can open the door for us. I’ve even toyed with the idea of beating someone else to the punch and upload it myself to some sites. Now of course it will be nice if it got a million buys and I can just say screw it and never have to work again but both of those situations are highly unlikely.

And I’m sure everyone has exceptions in their own mind about, “well I can download this because of ____” and that’s going to happen. There is also the mindset of “you like it you buy it,” which you can call the “honorable pirate” approach and to me it makes the most sense. The economy is in shambles and not everyone has the money to go to the movies or buy the new comics they want but everyone deserves the chance to be entertained, to forget about the daily drag they are going through. I have no problem with someone reading my book for free today and then paying me for it next week or in six months when they get the cash as long as they tell others they liked it. Even if they can’t afford it but tell others that can and do purchase items then I’m happy with that as well. I’d much rather have 10 people illegally download my book and tell 24 people total it was great and they buy it then only have 10 people buy it and get only half of what I could have. Piracy is never going to go away and you have to accept it for what it is and work around it to your advantage.

I believe I’ll stop now because if I even mention anything about the music industry the RIAA will have my blog shut down.

The Slayer of Saints

After the last several years of failures and being side tracked by life and all that comes with it my writing partner and I finally finished the novelization of our screenplay. I know its not a 150 million dollar budget blockbuster (yet) and you have to...uh..read...words, its stills something that you should do. If you have a soft spot in your heart for guns, explosions, prostitutes, demons, invasions, angels, good vs evil and angelic horses with drinking problems, THIS IS FOR YOU! So come on, buy it. Look, it's not a remake so it's already better than Hollywood. So come on, buy the paper back edition or the kindle version, either way, just buy it.

DC Attempts to Fail 52 Times in a Row

Justice League #1

DC Comics is doing a major launch of some comic titles on starting on Wednesday, August 31st... all of them. In fact it will be 52 titles or as they are calling it “the New 52.” Now instead of doing this the right way which I had suggested several years ago (which that was on an old account and deleted) for Marvel and DC to do a complete relaunch of all their titles they have decided to only do half of what I said was necessary for the industry to survive. Unfortunately as ballsy as some people make this out to be in fact they didn't far enough with it as they are just picking and choosing what they want from the previous history to make things work in stories they want to right now. This is the same crap that Marvel did with the Brand New Day storyline with Spider-Man.

Bruce's little baby boy, Damian

One of the key components to my plan was to only launch with the big titles first: Batman; Superman; Wonder Woman; Flash and Green Lantern. The writers could do whatever they wanted time wise in the first issues or so but by time you get to at least the fifth issue of introduction EVERY title is in the same time frame. Its a fluid universe and every title is in sync so its easy to follow along with for all readers. They are not doing this as they are slamming you with 52 titles at once. Everyone already has an extensive backstory that if you were just starting out you probably couldn't follow correctly. Here's an example. Batman has a son: Damian, who, once upon a time, was not in continuity but then they added him back into continuity. So now the son that Batman had, that he didn't have, that he has, is now... Robin. Yeah, so, uhh, screw you, DC. You could have fixed that and you didn't.

DC Multiverse

Another thing I was against was alliterate and parallel timelines/Earths. The worst thing you can do in a relauch/lauch/reboot/softboot is to have a multiverse which is one reason everything was so screwed up to begin with: Earth 1; Earth 2, etc. Have you read any of the Crisis books? Yeah. Its better to have only ONE universe in your comic line. PERIOD. That also goes for books in the future as well. I love Batman Beyond but he shouldn't make the cut for continuity.

Superman's new duds.

One thing I never mentioned and I'm against is the changing of costumes. Iconic costumes will be changed and that is NEVER a good idea. Marvel and DC seem to have an amazing track record of screwing things up when they change costumes. All of these costumes have worked for DECADES. There is no reason to change them. Trust me you will NOT see a sales increase for the good because you changed costumes, you're probably going to make it worse.

So pretty.

I do however support their decision to go day and date with digital publishing for all their titles. With smart phones and tablets becoming more and more accessible its seems like now will be the time to start going the digital route with comics. However I believe their pricing is wrong for this: its only one dollar cheaper than their counterparts. I believe all the titles should be sold for one dollar only. Look if I'm only saving ONE dollar I might as well buy the physical copy. I can pick up all 52 titles for 52 dollars. I can select one title and pay 12 dollars for the whole year and its DIGTIAL. Why make me pay $155.48 for all 52 on release date (both digital and paper issues will be priced at 2.99 for the first four weeks and then the digital will drop to 1.99) and $23.88 for ONE title a year? I'm NOT paying $24 bucks a year for a freaking digital comic.

Over all I hope this works out for the industry but they have made far to many mistakes with this one. You will have some initial success and some people will buy them just because they are Number ones and you might have some cheap sales online here and there for a story arch but I'm calling it right now: Fail.